Method and system for providing the download of transcoded files

• US 9,613,142 B2
• Filed: 04/13/2011
• Issued: 04/04/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 04/26/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Flash Networks, Ltd. (Constellation Software Incorporated)
• Original Assignee: Flash Networks, Ltd. (Constellation Software Incorporated)
• Inventors: Belan, Adi, Weiser, Adi, Weiss, Yoav, Gorokhovsky, Jenia
• Primary Examiner(s): Le, Miranda
• Application Number:
  US13/086,369
• Publication Number:
  US 20110264676A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,183 Days
• Field of Search: 707756, 707999101, 707999107
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/743 a collection of video files or sequences
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/783 using metadata automatically derived from the content

Abstract

A technique and system that generates transcoded media files from requested original compressed media files, and then transmits the transcoded media files to a requester rather than the original compressed media files. Advantageously, the disclosed solutions provide a more bandwidth efficient downloading of media files to a requesting device. In addition, the disclosed solutions also fully support the seek function that is typically employed in media player devices. By correlating the requested original compressed media files time-wise with the generated transcoded media files, seek requests generated by a requesting device can be mapped to the appropriate or a close proximity to the transcoded media file.

Claims

1. A method of delivering transcoded media, the method comprising:

preparing a transcoded database (“

TDB”

) in a memory element, wherein the TDB stores a plurality of transcoded media files, each transcoded media file comprising a plurality of transcoded key frames, wherein the offset in bytes from the beginning of the transcoded media file of each transcoded key frame is associated with an hash value that was calculated by implementing an hash function on data of a corresponding-original-compressed-media file at a location which is relevant to the location of that transcoded key frame from the beginning of the stored transcoded media file;

an intermediate server obtaining a chunk of an original compressed media file from a web server, the chunk of the original compressed media file being sent by the web server in response to a seek request that was sent from a specific requester'"'"'s device and, the chunk of the original compressed media file being directed toward the specific requester'"'"'s device, wherein the obtained chunk is located within the original compressed media file at an offset from the beginning of the original compressed media file identified by the seek request and wherein the intermediate server is communicatively positioned between a plurality of web servers and a plurality of requesting devices, and wherein the specific requester'"'"'s device is one of the plurality of requesting devices;

calculating a hash value on a portion of the obtained chunk of the original compressed media file;

the intermediate server selecting a transcoded media file from the plurality of transcoded media files stored in the TDB by searching for a transcoded media file associated with the calculated hash value; and

the intermediate server sending a portion of the selected transcoded media file, starting at a point within the transcoded media file that is associated with the calculated hash value, toward the specific requester'"'"'s device;

wherein the seek request was sent while the selected transcoded media file is rendered by the specific requester'"'"'s device.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the original compressed media file is Flash video file.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the hash values are calculated by using the MD-5 hash function.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the portion of the obtained original compressed media file consists of a predefined number of bytes starting from the beginning of the media data in the obtained chunk of the original compressed media file.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the intermediate server further:

receives a request for an original compressed media file from one of the plurality of requesting devices, the request being targeted to a specific web server from the plurality of web servers;

examines the request to determine if it meets a requirement for requesting a sufficient amount of data to be processed with the hash function;

transfers the request toward the specific web server if the requirement is met; and

modifies the request to meet the requirement if the request does not meet the requirement and transfers the modified request toward the specific web server.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the obtained original compressed media file contains metadata, which is transmitted in association of the original compressed media file.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the selected transcoded media file contains metadata, which is transmitted before the transcoded media data of the selected transcoded-media file.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the action of preparing the TDB is performed offline and further comprises the actions of:

a. fetching a stored original compressed media file from a memory element;

b. transcoding the fetched original compressed media file;

c. storing the transcoded media file into an allocated section in the TDB;

d. allocating a section in a TDB table (“

TDB-T”

) for storing information associated with the stored-transcoded-media file;

e. allocating an entry in the allocated section in the TDB-T for each transcoded key frame of the transcoded media file and store into each entry information that is associated with the transcoded key frame;

f. implementing the hash function on data at a plurality of locations in the fetched original compressed media file to generate a hash value in association with each location, wherein each location is associated with a transcoded key frame of the transcoded media file;

g. storing each generated hash value in the entry of the relevant transcoded key frame in the TDB-T.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the information stored in the allocated entry in the TDB-T that is associated with the stored transcoded media file comprises the location of the transcoded-media file in the TDB and a signature that is received from calculating the hash function on the beginning of the fetched original compressed media file as the signature of the allocated section.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the stored signature is used for correlating the transcoded media file with the fetched original compressed media file from which it was created.

11. The method of claim 8, wherein the information stored in the allocated entry in the TDB-T that is associated with the transcoded key frame comprises the offset in bytes of the transcoded-key frame from the beginning of the transcoded media file.

12. The method of claim 8, wherein the information stored in the allocated entry in the TDB-T that is associated with the transcoded-key frame further comprises the time-code of the transcoded key frame.

13. The method of claim 8, wherein the plurality of locations in the fetched original compressed media file comprises location that has an offset in bytes from the beginning of the fetched original compressed media file is similar to the offset in bytes of the relevant transcoded key frame from the beginning of the transcoded-media file.

14. The method of claim 8, wherein the plurality of locations in the fetched original compressed media file comprises the beginning of a key frame of the fetched original compressed media file that has a time code that is the closest time code to the time code of the relevant transcoded key frame of the transcoded media file.

15. The method of claim 8, wherein selecting the transcoded media file and the offset in the TDB based on the calculated hash value is implemented by searching the TDB-T for an entry having a signature that is similar to the calculated hash value, retrieving the offset in bytes of the transcoded key frame that is associated with the found entry and fetching the transcoded file from the TDB based on the retrieved offset and the location of the transcoded media file in the TDB that is stored in the section of the TDB-T that contains the found entry.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein a sessional TDB-T is created when the calculated hash value on the beginning of the obtained original compressed media file matches a signature of a section in the TDB-T, then this section is copied as the sessional TDB-T and a current Uniform Resource Locator (URL) associated with the obtained original compressed media file is stored as an indication for the sessional TDB-T.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein searching the TDB-T further comprises searching a section of the TDB-T that is copied to a sessional TDB-T that is associated with the current surfing session from the current URL.

18. The method of claim 1, wherein a key frame is an Intra frame.

19. A transcoding manager system, comprising:

one or more memory elements that store a plurality of original compressed media files and transcoded media files;

a transcoding engine that transcodes content of original compressed media files to create the transcoded media files;

a transcoding manager server (TMS) comprising;

a transcoded database table (TDB-T) that stores information related to the transcoded media files stored in the memory element;

a compressed-database table (CDB-T) that stores information related to the original compressed media files stored in the memory element; and

wherein the TMS loads the one or more memory element with a plurality of transcoded media files by selecting and fetching an original compressed media file from the memory element based at least on some of the information in the CDB-T, sending the fetched original compressed media file toward the transcoding engine, obtaining the transcoding media file from the transcoding engine;

storing the obtained transcoded media file in the memory element, wherein the stored transcoded media file has a plurality of key frames, each key frame is associated with an hash value that was calculated by implementing an hash function on data of the fetched-original-compressed-media file at a location which is relevant to the location of that key frame at the stored transcoded media file;

wherein the TMS is communicatively positioned between a plurality of requesters including a specific requestor and a plurality of servers and, after obtaining from the at least one a particular server, in response to a seek request that was sent from a specific requester, a chunk within an original compressed media file associated with the seek request and targeted toward the specific requestor, the TMS responds by selecting a transcoded media file that is related to the obtained original compressed media file from the memory element and commences sending of the selected transcoded media file, starting from a specific offset from the beginning of the selected transcoded-media file, toward the specific requester instead of the obtained original compressed media file;

wherein selecting the transcoded-media file and the specific offset is implemented by calculating the hash function on a portion of the obtained chunk of the original compressed media file to generate a hash value, searching the TDB-T for an entry that has a value of the calculated hash value and selecting the transcoded media file and specific offset that is associated with that entry as the associated transcoded media and specific offset; and

wherein the seek request is sent while the selected transcoded media file is rendered by the specific requester'"'"'s device.

20. The transcoding manager system of claim 19, wherein the original compressed media file is a Flash video file.

21. The transcoding manager system of claim 19, wherein the hash function is an MD-5 hash function.

22. The transcoding manager system of claim 19, wherein the portion of the obtained chunk of the original compressed media file is a predefine number of bytes from the media data starting at the beginning of the obtained chunk of the original compressed media file.

23. The transcoding manager system of claim 19, wherein the TMS further obtains a request for an original compressed media file from one of the requesting devices of the plurality of requesting devices, the request being targeted to a web server from the plurality of web servers;

the TMS verifies that the request matches a need associated with the hash function, and if so, the TMS transfers the request toward the targeted web server and if not, the TMS modifies the request to match the need associated with the hash function, and transfers the modified request toward the targeted web server.

24. The transcoding manager system of claim 19, wherein after receiving the transcoded media file from the transcoding engine, the TMS further:

allocates in the one or more memory elements a section in the TDB for storing the transcoded media file and a section in the TDB-T for storing information associated with the stored transcoded media file;

allocates an entry in the allocated section in the TDB-T for each transcoded-key frame of the transcoded media file and stores in each entry information that is associated with the transcoded key frame;

implements the hash function on a plurality of locations in the fetched original compressed media file wherein each location is associated with a transcoded-key frame of the transcoded media file; and

stores each calculated hash value as a signature of the relevant transcoded key frame in the entry of the relevant transcoded key frame in the TDB-T.

25. The transcoding manager system of claim 24, wherein the key frames are Intra-Frame.

26. The transcoding manager system of claim 24, wherein the information associated with the stored transcoded media file is the location of the transcoded-media file in the TDB and a signature that is received from calculating the hash function on the beginning of the fetched original compressed media file as the signature of the allocated section.

27. The transcoding manager system of claim 24, wherein the information that is associated with the key frame comprises an offset in bytes of the key frame from the beginning of the transcoded media file.

28. The transcoding manager system of claim 24, wherein the information that is associated with the key frame comprises the time-code of the key frame.

29. The transcoding manager system of claim 24, wherein the plurality of locations in the fetched original compressed media file comprises the location that has an offset in bytes from the beginning of the fetched original compressed media file that is similar to the offset in bytes of the relevant transcoded key frame from the beginning of the transcoded media file.

30. The transcoding manager system of claim 24, wherein the plurality of locations in the fetched original compressed media file comprises the beginning of a key frame of the fetched original compressed media file that has a time code that is the closest time-code to the time-code of the relevant transcoded key frame of the transcoded media file.

31. The transcoding manager system of claim 24, wherein after selecting an associated transcoded media file and the offset in the TDB based on searching the TDB-T for a value similar to the calculated hash value, the TMS retrieves the offset in bytes of the transcoded key frame that is associated with the calculated hash value and fetches the transcoded file from the TDB based on the retrieved offset and the location of the transcoded media file in the TDB that is stored in the section of the TDB-T that contains the found entry.